Boy killed for brandishing a pistol

[Ian_Gere]

You can't expect anyone to 'shoot to wound', it's just unrealistic. When the decision is taken to shoot, the shooter must aim for centre mass, because that gives the highest probability of a hit, which is not just important in the situation at hand, but so that the bullet does not hit somebody else behind, or after ricocheting off something behind. However the BBC news report stated that the kid reached for the gun in his waistband and was shot. That to me is disturbing. He was not pointing it. There was no imminent danger; there was the imminent danger of imminent danger. Clearly the cop who fired either already had his/her pistol out and trained on the kid, or reacted with lightning reflexes and 'outdrew' the kid. Neither of those situations to my mind sit right. Yes, the kid was in the wrong. Yes, it is phenomenally stupid to take anything which even vaguely looks like a gun out in public in the USA, where the prevalence of real steel makes it that much more difficult for cops to doubt that what they are seeing is a gun, but it's not long ago that British cops would routinely confront armed criminals with nothing more than a truncheon and bravery and kids are stupid...

I just cannot accept that the stupidity of a child is a justifiable reason to shoot him. And just because something could be a fuck sight worse than it appears, that to my mind is no justification for behaving as if it is that bad. When you're wearing body armour. Being a cop is a difficult job. It takes more bravery than most of us would wish to have to resort to on a regular basis. Er... well... nobody conscripts cops. When you hear hooves outside, you think horses, even though it could be zebras. When you see a child in a playground with what may be a gun, it probably is a toy. It might not be, true. The time to shoot is when it is out and being raised... but he was the bad guy.

And, although what Friz said was oversimplified in the extreme, nonetheless the fact that the kid was black may well have contributed to the situation, whether because the cop was an overt racist who deliberately shoots black people whenever s/he knows s/he can get away with it, or whether simply because s/he assumed that being black, the kid was more likely to have real steel than a white kid of the same age.

 

[Esoterick]

Sounds like the police are as much to blame as the boy, although the police don't have the excuse of being 12.

 

[Lozart]

Lets all calm the fuck down shall we?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/25/cleveland-police-video-officer-shooting-boy-clear

There has been no mention of race in any report of this case. This implies that either the Police officer was also "of colour" (and let's face it, it's Cleveland - he was probably black) or that is NOT an issue in this case.

Secondly, gun crime in Ohio is above the national average. Gun ownership in the US is - as we all know - widespread, so just because a child has a gun in a playground it doesn't automatically equate that it is more likely to be a toy. According to all reports thus far released, while the 911 call said that the gun was "probably a toy" this information was not passed to the officer who then faces a situation that anyone would have to take as worst case. Now, whether it was by panic or by design the boy went to pull the gun out of his waistband when he was told to put his hands up by an armed police officer. As a youth in the US he should have known the likely outcomes of this scenario but putting that aside (he's 12 after all) this was a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Who had taken the orange tip off the gun is irrelevant as the tip of the gun would not have been visible if it was tucked into his waistband. There is video of the encounter that apparently clearly shows what happened (although it hasn't been released to the press) and the officer was less than 10 feet away. If the officer on the scene couldn't tell from that distance if the gun was real or fake then it was clearly sufficiently real looking to convince the officer that it was a real gun.

Put yourself in his shoes for a moment - you're in a state with higher than average gun crime faced with someone with what appears to be a real weapon. When asked to put their hands up, that person reaches for the gun. Are you really going to wait and see if he pulls out a real gun and starts shooting?

It's a tragic situation that should have been avoided but it stands that if you take a realistic weapon out in public in the US, you need to take responsibility for your actions.

 

[TheGrover]

+1 to lozarts post. Lets wait for more details before appointing blame or judgement.

Does anyone have a link to the video?

 

[jcheeseright]

Imminent danger of imminent danger is imminent danger. If someone has been told to do something and they instead reach for the gun in their waistband they are going to be shot, a 12 year old with a pistol is just as dangerous as a 21 year old with a pistol.

 

[Lozart]

Does anyone have a link to the video?

1) It's not been released

2) why do you want to see a video of a 12 year old getting shot?

 

[TheGrover]

1) someone mentioned a video

2) i dont, and i doubt anyone wants to see that, but it would stop people arguing over details when they can see what happened leading to the shot

 

[Lozart]

1) someone mentioned a video

2) i dont, and i doubt anyone wants to see that, but it would stop people arguing over details when they can see what happened leading to the shot

I mentioned the video and this is the internet - it won't stop anything. If anything it will just lead to more arguments.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Imminent danger of imminent danger is imminent danger. If someone has been told to do something and they instead reach for the gun in their waistband they are going to be shot, a 12 year old with a pistol is just as dangerous as a 21 year old with a pistol.

I disagree. The moment to pull the trigger is when the 'gun' is being raised, not when the kid reaches for it. It's a split second and yeah, in that situation, where it is a child so, although it could be real steel and just as dangerous no matter his age, it is less likely to be a firearm than were he an adult - enough that waiting that split second longer before pulling the trigger is the right thing to do.

As I said above, being a cop is a difficult job. I personally would likely have shit it and fired if he so much as twitched towards drawing what might be a firearm, but I'm not trained to deal with such situations and 1) cops where body armour, 2) putting yourself in harms way is part of the job, and 3) they had a responsibility towards the kid and his family as well as the wider community whom could have been in danger from the child's actions.

Whatever the reasons may be, it is also the case that the number of black Americans killed by police is disproportionately higher than white people, compared to the population density. Whatever ethnic group the officer who fired these shots belonged to, that fact goes far enough to suggest institutional racism that we cannot discount it as a factor. I was going to leave this point out, because truthfully I can't remember where I read that statistic, but i suspect that it isn't actually news to anyone, so i believe the point stands even unsupported by a direct source.

 

[Sitting Duck]

OK - I have not seen video nor do I wish to.....

I have been following this a little closer as it is airsoft and have a son a little older

I noticed just right before the ferguson riots started that a US news site said that

the video had been viewed and showed kid reaching for his gun

I can't remember the exact site as it was at work 3:00am on works pc

Also nearly all my comments are NOT my own opinions or views but mostly what

OTHER peoples comments that were left on both UK & US news sites may I add

I don't know what colour the officer is nor do I care

other people mentioned about tazer and the "middle class white kid" in comments

Nobody needs to blame the parent/mum - I'm sure she is quite able to do that herself

I too will not judge the kids family for as my own son leaves for school & cadets how

would I know he is not taking in an airsoft pistol to "show off" to his mates

(much like I did and perhaps some of us have done in past)

Older ones out there - how many times we scorned drink drivers yet how many with

20 or 30yrs driving exp say the was always under the limit - far fetched maybe

but we still could of killed ourselves & others

like I say we have all done some dumb a$$ things I think if we are honest

So I am not judging nobody, nor do I really want to blame colour or background ffs

it is a very sad terrible and tragic thing to happen for kid, mum/dad, officer even

and airsoft too I suppose

We all have a little difference of opinion or views, but lets not judge anybody

but try to ensure this stuff never happens to us or anybody we know & love

I hope this will be my last on this terrible matter and hope to get back to my usual

less serious rambling bollox fairly soon

lets ensure we remain sensible and safe - even me

 

[Lozart]

So the video has been released to the press (or at least an edited version of it).

I can fully understand why the police were called. The kid is wandering about in a public place waving a gun about and generally being kind of a dick. Obviously the family have told everyone what a little angel he is and I'm sure they believe that but to me he just looks like a bit of a wannabe gang member trying to look hard

On the matter of race the familys attorney said:

[SIZE=1.2em]An attorney for the boy's family, Timothy Kucharski, said Tamir went to the park with friends on Saturday afternoon, but he did not know the details of what led to his shooting.[/SIZE]

'This is not a black and white issue,' he said. 'This is a right and wrong issue. This is not a racial issue. This is about people doing their jobs the right way.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2850234/Video-released-showing-police-shooting-Tamir-Rice-12-carrying-BB-gun.html#ixzz3KGVYViCb
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Again, given the situation I'm not sure I would have reacted any differently than the police officer that shot him. I certainly don't think this is a matter of "institutional racism". Relevant tale: a very good friend of mine is an officer in TSG 5, Met Police. The same TSG that got all the grief about the G8 riots a couple of years back. Anyway - their job is to do all the nasty bits that the rest of the Met don't like getting involved in (public order, crime swoops, drug busts, midnight door entrys that kind of thing). He got a load of grief from some local "people of colour" for "picking on all the black boys" and being racist and yes he was pretty much just arresting black people. Was he institutionally racist? No - he was working in Lewisham. As he said to the woman that was giving him grief "you find me a white guy doing something wrong and I'll nick him too". If you're working in a predominantly black area where crime is predominantly committed by young, black males - what else are you supposed to do but arrest young, black males?

 

[Chock]

Having seen the video of the shooting (and if you have not, note that it is not particularly graphic, it is from a security camera from quite some distance away, which is taking a still shot once every few seconds, so is in fact more like a sees of very grainy still shots than an actual video) a couple of things come to mind from seeing it.

First up, the police car doesn't really seem to be driven up to the scene in a particularly intelligent or tactically sensible fashion; it speeds onto the grass of a small park in front of a recreation centre, where the kid is standing under a small bandstand, comes to a halt, and one police officer is out of the car and firing a shot literally within two-three seconds of the car having stopped. So, full marks for rapid reactions, but no marks for giving yourself time to assess the threat from a safe distance. Arriving that close to the reported suspect is just asking for trouble in my opinion, and in fact it looks to me as though the officer riding in the front passenger seat simply gets out of the car as it halts, reacts to some movement from the child and fires instinctively. If they'd instead rolled up to the park a bit further away, staying on the road, they'd have probably been better able to judge matters and take things a bit more calmly, perhaps taking cover behind their vehicle and shouting at him to drop the weapon, kick it away and then lie on the ground. As it stands, it all happens too quickly and it looks doubtful that they did any of that.

Second, the young lad is definitely not helping himself by what he is doing, i.e. walking up and down the street in front of a recreation/community centre waving what does genuinely look like a real semi-automatic pistol. When we hear the 911 call from the old gentleman who reports the matter, he does say it might not be a real weapon, but of course it is intended to look like a real weapon - even upon fairly close inspection - so we can hardly be surprised that he is calling it in to the police, as I would hope any responsible citizen would do. I should think that most twelve year old kids, unless they are either retarded or extremely naive, would be aware that this could be a result of walking up and down the street with what really does look like a real semi-automatic pistol, in broad daylight. If not, then we have to conclude that the kid's parents bear some responsibility for the occurrence, in either allowing him to have the thing/buying the thing for him, and particularly for not having drilled some common sense into the kid with regard to not doing stupid stuff which could result in tragedies such as what happened.

In the days when I was a kid, it was absolutely fine to run around with toy guns playing in the street, because guns in the UK were a real rarity in crimes and so anyone seeing a kid with a 'gun' would have known for sure it was a toy cap gun. That and the fact that toy guns when I was a kid rarely looked like the real thing that often anyway. These days however, gun crime is far more prevalent, and we know kids as young as 12 can and do use them, particularly in gangs in inner city areas. So it is not a stretch at all for a passer-by - or indeed a police officer attending a call out - to be convinced that even a young kid could be carrying a real firearm. And that airsoft gun which Tamir Rice had when he was shot certainly does look very realistic indeed.

So, I'd say this is a deadly and tragic combination of not terrible, but certainly less than brilliant, policing and less than smart behaviour from the child who was shot, coupled with some less than brilliant parenting. I seriously doubt there was any racial motivation on the part of the police officer in what he did; he may be the most racist cop in the world for all I know, but what he did was clearly an instinctive reaction rather than a racially motivated action.

 

[cavninja]

There's been a lot of good comment on here and a small bit of hysteria. Ian, Lozart and Chock make some excellent points, Chock, "our hobby requires a great deal of responsibility" is absolutely right!

For my two pence worth, its all about context and there are many layers to the context.

In the UK we police by consent, proximity policing, in the US it is non-proximity policing, law enforcement. I.E. if you do not comply i will force you!

UK police officers would have reacted very differently, but if there was a credible threat, they would have reacted swiftly and effectively, the Lee Rigby murder is a case in point, swift use of potentially deadly force and then immediate follow up with life saving treatment.

In the US it is very very different. The spate of shootings, many involving schools mean police no longer contain and assess, they have to go in hard to deal with the threat. we may not like that or approve, it is easy to sit in judgment, but that is the tactic they have evolved through hard bitter experience. Just watch the Columbine footage as police assess outside while students are murdered inside.

Equally there are a large and worrying number of incidents in the US where police officers use deadly force, without apparent justification and then watch their victim bleed out. There are countless clips on YouTube of this, the most worrying is a deaf guy shot in the back for jay walking because he failed to stop when challenged. Even more worrying is the fact that there seems to be no legal redress against these "reckless" officers.

I thank god I live in Great Britain! it may not be perfect, but it is better than a great many places the world over. It allows me the freedom to practise my hobby in safe and fun conditions.

I in return act responsibly and educated my children to do the same.

Two words Troops

Responsibility

Consequence

 

[TheGrover]

Hear hear

 

[Ian_Gere]

At no point in that video did i see the child point the gun at the cops, raise it as if he was going to point it at the cops or, while the cops were there, point it at anyone else. In fact there did not appear to be anybody else around at all (although of course even 9mm shots can be lethal at considerable range, but you'd have to hope that for that to be the justification the gun would at least be in his hand). Difficult to be sure whether he had his hand on the 'gun' or was lifting his top out of the way so they could see it. I did see the cops pull up and pretty much immediately shoot him. Maybe they have decided that, due to other circumstances such as a crime wave etc, they are going to shoot first and ask questions later. That certainly appears to have been a good description of what happened. We will have to wait and see if the tactic gets the Chief of Police, or Mayor, or whomever, re-elected. The community at large may consider the odd 12 year old to be acceptable collateral damage. I wonder how many dead children it would take to become unacceptable, because one thing is for sure: for established criminals with lucrative business to lose, the answer will not be to quietly melt away, it will be to get better guns and shoot before the cops even get out of their cars...

Having seen that though, if he was my son, those cops would be dead men walking.

 

[Mike636]

I have to disagree with you Ian, unless you were there how can anyone possibly comment on the actions of the officers from grainy piss poor CCTV.

Maybe the two officers were sent to a call to a person armed with a firearm pointing at members of the public.

Maybe the officers saw a person who they were informed was armed reach behind him for what they belived and were informed was a lethal firearm.

Maybe just maybe those officers fired in defence of their own lives because they belived an armed person was reaching for a weapon.

Maybe those officers wanted to see their kids that evening, pay the mortgage that month, do that bit off painting in the garden.

Maybe they didn't want their wives to explain why Daddy wasn't coming home. To why Christmas would be full of awkward silences and red eyes.

Behind the body armour and cuffs and unform we are humans too, just as scared and vulnerable as every one else, yet coppers head towards the gunfire, the knifes, the casualties, because at the end of the day they care.

 

[Ian_Gere]

They just didn't care quite enough about Tamir Rice.

 

[Mike636]

Over themselves? Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6

 

[Ian_Gere]

Protect And Serve

 

[Mike636]

Can't protect anyone if you're dead.

If we're honest if this kid had killed both officers the majority of people on this forum wouldn't know.